This class addresses important, current debates in media with in-depth discussion of popular perceptions and policy implications. Students will engage in the critical study of the economic, political, social, and cultural significance of media, and learn to identify, analyze, and understand the complex relations among media texts, policies, institutions, industries, and infrastructures. This class offers the opportunity to discuss, in stimulating and challenging ways, topics such as ideology, propaganda, net neutrality, big data, digital hacktivism, digital rebellion, media violence, gamification, collective intelligence, participatory culture, intellectual property, artificial intelligence, etc., from historical, transcultural, and multiple methodological perspectives.

The goal of this seminar is to have open discussions of controversial political and social issues and raise awareness of current world events in an informal setting. Discussions for the first part of each class will focus on current events from that week, while in the second part of class students will discuss a scheduled issue in greater detail. Scheduled issues include the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the regulation of marijuana, how our society should punish criminals, genocide in Rwanda and Sudan, discrimination in our society today, the future of social security, whether pornography is sexist, and where we can go from here in the Arab/Israeli Conflict. Discussions will be supplemented by readings, films, and public speakers. Students will also be encouraged to read news media from around the world.

This course focuses on cyberspace and its implications for private and public, sub-national, national, and international actors and entities.

This introductory course will provide you with a multidisciplinary approach to managing waste in low- and middle-income countries, with strategies that diminish greenhouse gas emissions and provide enterprise opportunities for marginalized populations. You will focus on understanding some of the multiple dimensions of waste generation and management. Topics are presented in real contexts through case studies, field visits, civic engagement and research, and include consumer culture, waste streams, waste management, entrepreneurship and innovation on waste, technology evaluation, downcycling / upcycling, Life Cycle Analysis and waste assessment. Labs include building low-cost, small scale technology, field trips to waste-related institutions and businesses, art workshops and e-waste scrapping taught by practitioners, artists and waste enthusiasts.

Short Description:
Innocent trends may foreshadow a grimmer future. You may wonder why the title refers to pleasures. If you have read Huxley's Brave New World, you may understand how pleasures can be motors of control and manipulation, which makes them dangerous.

Long Description:
Canceling” and calling out appear as the struggle against the opposite world views. I invite you to look at this cultural phenomenon from an economic perspective that outlines the social stakes of its practice. This book will encourage you to consider the unintended consequences of cancel culture and question its reliability as a tool of activism.

Word Count: 24104

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Digital Suppression and Cryptographic Defense of Social Movements

Short Description:
Defend Dissent is an introduction to cryptography paired with the social impacts of surveillance and the protective potential of encryption, with a focus on US social movements. Each chapter ends with a story that brings social context to the material—from surveillance used against contemporary US protests to the African National Congress’s use of partially manual encryption in fighting apartheid in South Africa in the 80s. This book can be read linearly, or you can pick and choose what you would like to learn about. Each chapter is prefaced with what you should read first (for background) and concludes with what you might want to read next. También disponible en Español Data dashboard

Word Count: 67802

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Democracy in Brief touches on topics such as rights and responsibilities of citizens, free and fair elections, the rule of law, the role of a written constitution, separation of powers, a free media, the role of parties and interest groups, military-civilian relations and democratic culture.

This is an advanced graduate-level seminar that will analyze the effectiveness of development and planning theories from the perspective of practitioners who implement projects and policies based on such theories. The course will be organized around 12 implementation puzzles, which should be considered for re-theorizing both developmental and planning processes.

This is an advanced seminar that will analyze the effectiveness of development and planning theories from the perspective of practitioners who implement projects and policies based on such theories. The ultimate goal is to create new planning sensibilities, which theorize from practice, not the other way around.

Short Description:
The Local Development and Local Opportunities book is one of the first of its kind, in particular in the context of development of the small Anatolian cities. The book, on one hand, discusses opportunities offered by the small Anatolian cities; and on the other hand, shares new proposals for potential development programs.

Long Description:
The Local Development and Local Opportunities book is one of the first of its kind, in particular in the context of development of the small Anatolian cities. The book, on one hand, discusses opportunities offered by the small Anatolian cities; and on the other hand, shares new proposals for potential development programs. The book, as the last in a series of new academic activities between 2016-2018, is related to development concerns in a self-organized small city in the Eastern Anatolia.

Word Count: 4270

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This course examines the role of the engineer as patent expert and as technical witness in court and patent interference and related proceedings. It discusses the rights and obligations of engineers in connection with educational institutions, government, and large and small businesses. It compares various manners of transplanting inventions into business operations, including development of New England and other U.S. electronics and biotechnology industries and their different types of institutions. The course also considers American systems of incentive to creativity apart from the patent laws in the atomic energy and space fields.
Acknowledgment
The instructors would like to thank Joanne Rines and Elijah Ercolino for their efforts in preparing this course.

In recent years, the redistribution of risk has created conditions for natural and technological disasters to become more widespread, more difficult to manage, and more discriminatory in their effects. Policy and planning decision-makers frequently focus on the impact that human settlement patterns, land use decisions, and risky technologies can have on vulnerable populations. However, to ensure safety and promote equity, they also must be familiar with the social and political dynamics that are present at each stage of the disaster management cycle. Therefore, this course will provide students with:

An understanding of the breadth of factors that give rise to disaster vulnerability; and
A foundation for assessing and managing the social and political processes associated with disaster policy and planning.

In recent years, the redistribution of risk has created conditions for natural and technological disasters to become more widespread, more difficult to manage, and more discriminatory in their effects. Policy and planning decision-makers frequently focus on the impact that human settlement patterns, land use decisions, and risky technologies can have on vulnerable populations. However, to ensure safety and promote equity, they also must be familiar with the social and political dynamics that are present at each stage of the disaster management cycle. Therefore, this course will provide students with: An understanding of the breadth of factors that give rise to disaster vulnerability; and A foundation for assessing and managing the social and political processes associated with disaster policy and planning.

This course examines the growing importance of medicine in culture, economics and politics. It uses an historical approach to examine the changing patterns of disease, the causes of morbidity and mortality, the evolution of medical theory and practice, the development of hospitals and the medical profession, the rise of the biomedical research industry, and the ethics of health care in America.

This is a course about how research knowledge and other types of knowledge come to be actionable and influential in the world — or not. The course explores ways to make research knowledge more accessible, credible, and useful in the realm of public policy and practice, a project in which the course faculty collectively bring decades of professional experience, in both academic and non-academic roles.
The course addresses the politics of the policymaking process, the power of framing and agenda-setting, fads and paradigms in the design professions and society in general, how knowledge diffuses along knowledge and influence networks, and how varied types of knowledge (rational, craft, other) and deliberation shape decision-making and action. The course engages a number of guests to present case studies of research in use (and abuse) in varied fields, highlighting rich areas for potential research contributions, along with major conflicts in public values, political interests, ethical obligations, and more. The resulting dilemmas confront scholars, policymakers, practitioners, and others as they look to research — sometimes — for useful guidance, influence, or both.

This course focuses on the origins, functions, and implications of downtown management organizations (DMOs), such as business improvement districts, in a variety of national contexts including the United States, Canada, South Africa, and the United Kingdom. It critically examines how a range of urban theories provide a rationale for the establishment and design of DMOs; the evolution and transnational transfer of DMO policy; and the spatial and political externalities associated with the local proliferation of DMOs. Particular emphasis is given to the role of DMOs in securing public space.

Short Description:
The book looks at the George Floyd uprising using the theory of the Black Radical Tradition and Black Marxism. Part of a global wave of rebellions against the police, inequality, and the state, the 2020 uprising opened up a new chapter in the revolutionary history of the proletariat.

Long Description:
The book looks at the George Floyd uprising using the theory of the Black Radical Tradition and Black Marxism. Part of a global wave of rebellions against the police, inequality, and the state, the 2020 uprising opened up a new chapter in the revolutionary history of the proletariat. Erupting in Minneapolis in late May, the uprising spread across the United States. Over the course of the next few months, dozens of police stations were attacked, hundreds of cop cars were burned, and thousands of stores in downtown urban centers were looted. The Black proletariat led the charge, but other racialized proletarians joined the fight, demonstrating new possibilities for multi-racial struggle. At the same time, this uprising was contained and repressed by a Black led counterinsurgency that played a definitive role in neutralizing the revolutionary potentials of the movement. Furthermore, there were clear limits to the uprising when it came to gender. When it was time to rebel for Breonna Taylor, few were willing to fight as hard as they had for George Floyd. These and other uncomfortable truths are considered in the opening text, “Race, Class, and Gender in the 2020 Uprising.” Aside from wrestling with these contradictions, Insurgent Possibilities documents the Walter Wallace Jr. rebellion in Philadelphia, where the Black proletariat refined the tactic of looting by car, one of the greatest tactical innovations of the uprising. “Cars, Riots, and Black Liberation» is a first hand reflection on this phenomenon. Insurgent Possibilities also argues that the tensions and contours of the 2020 riots indicate the unique relationship between civil war and revolution that is so pronounced in the United States. Building off of the analysis set out in earlier texts, “Prelude to a New Civil War” traces the mounting hostilities of the uprising back to the unfinished business of the first US Civil War. The last text in the collection, “Fire on Main Street,” looks at how the uprising played out in small cities and suburbs throughout the country, focusing on the strategic implications that these peripheral areas pose for questions of insurrection and revolution.

Word Count: 18079

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This subject examines the interactions of East Asia with the rest of the world and the relationships of each of the East Asian countries with each other, from ca. 1500 to 2000 A.D. Primary focus on China and Japan, with some reference to Korea, Vietnam, and Central Asia. Asks how international diplomatic, commercial, military, religious, and cultural relationships joined with internal processes to direct the development of East Asian societies. Subject addresses perceptions and misperceptions among East Asians and foreigners.

Word Count: 110118

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14.454 is an introduction to current macroeconomic concerns with particular emphasis on medium-run economic fluctuations, economic crises, and the role of asset markets. Topics include the explanation of high chronic unemployment in some nations, the source of modern liquidity crises, the origin and end of speculative bubbles, and the factors that lead to substantial periods of economic stagnation.